


Sometimes You Can’t

by AsterRoc



Series: Pepperony One Shots [3]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M, Harm to Animals, Hurt/Comfort, Minor Character Death, Tony Feels, Tony Stark Has A Heart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-13
Updated: 2014-04-13
Packaged: 2018-01-19 06:07:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1458793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AsterRoc/pseuds/AsterRoc
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt:  "Tony finds a hurt bird on the sidewalk and takes it home. Pepper is initally not amused, but learns to love bird."</p><p>Didn't exactly follow the prompt...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sometimes You Can’t

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thejessbeast](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thejessbeast/gifts).



> Trigger warning: harm to animals

The tiny “plink” sound is so small against the backdrop of explosions and lightning that Tony would not have heard it had it not been right next to his helmet’s external audio receptors. “Tell me that’s not what I think it was, Jarv,” Tony snaps out to his AI, and he is already diving down, searching the landscape below him when the targeting system locks on to a small brown body and the voice in his helmet replies, “You’re not going to like what I have to say, sir.” 

“Then can it, and tell me where the rest of the team is,” he barks back, dodging around a puff of smoke and another metallic body falling alongside him – one of Doom’s robots, apparently taken out of commission by a lightning strike. 

“Mr. Odinson has just helped Mr. Barton to a higher position atop the Hancock tower and is now circling the Prudential tower.” Tony slows slightly as another robot passes beneath him, momentarily losing sight of the falling brown form. “Dr. Banner is on Boylston outside the library, confirming that the grounded robots remain out of commission.” He guns it again, and sees the ball of feathers once more, one of Jarvis’s helpful yellow boxes tracking it through his vision as it is buffeted by the wind. “Your colleagues seem to have things under control, sir, and there’s no sign of Dr. Doom himself.” With a twitch of his toes, Tony increases the thrust downwards and accelerates towards his goal. “I estimate an 87% probability that it is safe for you to leave the field of combat.” Finally Tony is close enough that he can stretch his gloved hands out and gently cradle the small inert body in them. He uses as little acceleration as he can get away with, his boot repulsors leaving a dark streak across the roof of the Hynes Convention Center as he curves, but he cannot afford to jostle the fragile form in his hands. 

“Full speed to my wet lab, Jarv, but be gentle,” Tony rasps out, unable to see the route clearly himself. His viewscreen must have been cracked by one of Doom’s ‘bots, or maybe that dip in the Charles had gunked up the camera. 

“Of course sir. And may I say, good luck.”

* * *

Pepper wants to be annoyed at Tony for having Jarvis call her to the lab to help with an emergency, after all she had established firm boundaries with the both of them that she was only willing to stick her hand into Tony’s chest again if she had a month’s prior notice, but she knows that he has just been fighting in Boston so she is more afraid than annoyed. 

“Did he say what he needed me for? What happened? What’s wrong, is he okay?” she spills out to Jarvis as she hurries along the hallway. 

“He…” Jarvis seems to hesitate, and this actually worries Pepper more, and she puts on more speed. “He didn’t actually call for you Ms. Potts, I just thought you should be there for him.” Unnerved, Pepper stops talking and breaks into a jog, following the blinking lights Jarvis provides to guide her towards Tony’s wet lab. 

She lifts her eyes as she turns the corner to face the glass wall fronting the lab, and what she sees brings her to a halt. Tony is almost fully in his armor still, only his face plate up and the gloves off of his hands. The armor is dirty and has some scratches, but there doesn’t seem to be anything majorly wrong with it. Tony’s face however is tear streaked where he peers down at something on the table before him, his forearms rest against the edges of the table, and his hands shake where he holds them above the object. The thing is small and brown, and… furry? Pepper doesn’t know what is wrong, or what it is that Tony looks at, but Jarvis was right to call her. She quickly taps a code into the panel on the glass door and it slides open for her. 

As Pepper strides in towards him, she is better able to see what it is that lies on the table. It is nothing more than a common brown sparrow, feathers ruffled all over the place and streaked with more dried blood than fresh blood, and Pepper knows that although she cannot tell if it’s male or female, Tony would be able to. She doesn’t need the small replay graphic Jarvis projects behind Tony, out of his line of sight, to realize that Tony must have collided with it mid-air. She can’t tell if Tony is breathing inside his suit, but the bird certainly is not. 

“Oh, Tony…” she says, and knows her voice is full of pity and sympathy. She walks up behind where he sits immobile, and wraps her arm around the hard metal. 

“She’s not breathing,” Tony says, and his voice is filled with infinite pain. “Her heart’s not beating. Maybe I can make another arc reactor—”

“Shhhh,” Pepper croons, lifts her hand higher up, towards his head, gently curls her fingers into the open face of his helmet, caresses his cheek. It is wet with cool tears. 

Pepper doesn’t understand where his grief comes from. She doesn’t know why he would feel so strongly about just a bird, and not even one he knew, but she honors his grief. There are so many things about Tony that she has never understood, and may never understand. One thing she does understand is that he feels so much more strongly than the press would ever believe, he has a beautiful heart hidden under the cool uncaring playboy persona that he cultivates in public. She may be the only one to know that Tony Stark really does have a heart, and she will protect it in whatever way she can. And each time it is hurt again she will do what she can to help it heal once more. 

Pepper presses his face gently, turns him towards her, rotates the sturdy stool with his armored body to face her. He moves with her guidance, not resisting, until she presses his face against her shoulder. She cannot feel his body shaking due to the suit, but she hears his snuffles and her shoulder gets wet.

* * *

The next day when Pepper returns to the lab for Tony’s signature on some paperwork, she sees that he is working with what looks like one of those deer whistles that people attach to cars to ward them away from being hit. The device that Tony is working with is much smaller though, and Pepper expects that its noise will be much higher pitched and thus ward off smaller creatures. 

Pepper doesn’t comment on his latest project. 

And as Tony signs the paperwork for the Maria Stark Foundation to donate a million dollars to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, earmarked for passerine studies and human impact research, he doesn’t comment either. His smile that is both sad and grateful at the same time is all the acknowledgement Pepper needs.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from my mentor teacher who told me "Sometimes you can't save them all."
> 
> The Cornell Lab of Ornithology does actually have [a large set of human impacts research projects](http://www.birds.cornell.edu/page.aspx?pid=1662#researchThemeHighlights=1).
> 
> And I wrote a companion short from JARVIS's point of view, posted on Tumblr and titled [Protocol Success Probability <100%](http://zandperl.tumblr.com/post/119810724322/pov). Thanks for the prompt Anon!


End file.
